A Writer's Take on Global and National Issues with Background Information and Humor As Needed

American Naval Power Key to Survival Is In Precarious State

Posted on March 4, 2011

In a recent article, Mark Halpern writes of the decline of US sea forces and the precarious future we face as a trapped, insular power. He like many others feel that the apex of American power was the Kennedy years that ended with his assassination in 1962. We as a people lost our confidence and our way.

With figures to back up his theories, Halpern underscores the import of both America’s technological promises to the world that have been unrealized and it’s lack of conviction and sacrifice to make them happen when the world seems to be picking up the banner and moving on without us.

His summary remarks place a laser focus on that which should again and forever be important to us:

The United Sates Navy need not follow the Royal Navy into near oblivion. We have five times the population and almost six times the GDP of the U.K., and unlike Britain we were not exhausted by the great wars and their debt, and we neither depended upon an empire for our sway nor did we lose one.Despite its necessity, deficit reduction is not the only or even the most important thing. Abdicating our more than half-century stabilizing role on the oceans, neglecting the military balance, and relinquishing a position we are fully capable of holding will bring tectonic realignments among nations—and ultimately more expense, bloodletting, and heartbreak than the most furious deficit hawk is capable of imagining. [Pakistan Observer]